Clegg v Farage: Crunching the numbers

Last night's debate between Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg was a blizzard of
rival statistics. Did the numbers stack up?

Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage last night debated Britain's place in the European Union. It was a blizzard of statistics. Did the numbers stack up?

Claim one: Britain relies on the EU for 3 million jobs

Nick Clegg: “It has been reliably estimated that over three million jobs are linked to our position within the EU… Three million jobs is three million pay packets. This is at the end of the day about jobs, jobs, jobs.”

This is one of the most controversial figures in the EU debate. It comes from a South Bank University paper in 2000, which showed that “three million jobs were associated with EU demand.”

Reality: The EU is Britain's biggest trading partner. However, in 2013 one of the authors of the paper, Prof Iain Begg, said that did not mean those jobs would be lost if Britain left the bloc.

“Many of the jobs would still be sustained because people in other European countries would continue to buy some British goods,” he told the Telegraph – an argument made last night by Mr Farage.

Claim two: Ukip is taking Old Labour voters

Nigel Farage: “The truth of it is only one in three Ukip voters is a former Conservative. We pick up the bulk of our votes from old Labour and from non-voters getting back into politics.

Reality: Ukip has taken votes from all parties in local elections, but Farage's view is shared by academics who have examined Ukip’s growth.

“UKIP voters are deeply misunderstood: they are not middle-class, financially secure Tories from the Shires who care only about Europe and securing an EU referendum,” say Matthew Goodwin and Robert Ford. “UKIP are winning over the ‘Left Behind’ groups in British society: old, working class, men, with very few educational qualifications.

"These are voters who hold a very different set of values to the professional, middle-class majority: they are far more nationalist, Eurosceptic, fiercely opposed to immigration and feel like they have no voice in politics.”

Claim three: New jobs are going to British people, not foreigners

Nick Clegg: “Of all the new jobs created over the last year or two, 9 out of 10 of those new jobs have gone to British workers.”

Reality: The Government has deployed ONS figures to claim it has reversed a trend of British jobs going to foreign workers, and the latest figures appear to support Mr Clegg.

Between 2005 and 2010, the number of British people in a job fell by 413,000, while the number of foreigners in employment soared by 736,000.

But between 2012 and 2013, the number of British people in a job rose by 348,000, while the number of foreigners in work rose by just 26,000.

Claim four: Immigrants have flooded the labour market and driven down wages

Nigel Farage: “We’ve had a massive over supply of labour and you’ve seen your wages go down over the last ten years.”

Reality: The evidence is patchy and contested. The most recent Home Office report, which analysed a series of economic studies, found there was “relatively little evidence” that migrants had caused British workers to be “displaced” during a buoyant market, but during a recession there was “some labour market displacement” of lower-skilled natives. But the report admitted it was out of date and the conclusions were “tentative”. Other studies have suggested that immigration has lowered wages for low-skilled workers but increased them for others.

Reality: The NHS is increasingly reliant on foreign labour. In 2002, 6,210 of the NHS’s 26,400 consultant doctors were trained overseas, a proportion of 23.5 per cent. Ten years later, it had risen to 33.5 per cent, with staff coming from 108 different countries. Around a third of nurses are thought to have been born overseas. The suggestion that the NHS would “collapse overnight” if migration were halted is hyperbole, but recruitment would undoubtedly become harder and staff shortages, already biting A&E departments, would be exacerbated.

Claim six: 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians may come to Britain.

One of the big clashes of the night, as Nick Clegg brandished a Ukip leaflet which claimed the release of accession controls would mean “29 million Romanians and Bulgarians may come to this country. “There aren’t even 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians living in Romania and Bulgaria. It’s simply not true.”

That’s because two million have already left, Farage replied, and said the UK’s borders are now open to 485 million people. “We have a total open door, unconditionally.”

Reality: Strictly speaking, Farage is almost right. Romania’s population is 21.7 million and Bulgaria’s is 6.9 million, according to the CIA world factbook. They all have the legal right to travel to Britain. But the numbers who came to Britain appear, so far, to be lower than many claimed. There are 144,000 people from the two countries working in Britain, according to ONS figures published in February, an increase of 40 per cent in a year. That number may rise once later figures take into account any influx following the lifting of work restrictions on January 1.

Claim seven: 7, or 70, per cent of Britain’s laws are made in Europe.

Nigel Farage: “We had Commission Vivian Reding in London, saying we must all sign up to the United States of Europe and we must recognise the importance of Brussels because after all it makes 70 per cent of our laws.”

Nick Clegg: “It is 7 per cent, not 75 per cent.”

Mr Farage conceded his figure was a Ukip estimate. “We have asked people to count.” Mr Clegg said his figure was from the House of Commons library, adding: “I believe them.”

Reality: The House of Commons figures say that 6.8% of primary legislation (statues) and 14.1% of secondary legislation (statutory instruments, or regulations) passed in Britain were related to implementing EU obligations. It cautions: “The degree of involvement varied from passing reference to explicit implementation.” And it adds: “Estimates of the proportion of national laws based on EU laws in other EU member states vary widely, ranging from around six per cent to 84 per cent.”

But counting the number of laws does not indicate their influence. “It is not clear to what extent the figures alone indicate the degree of European influence or Europeanisation, without a qualitative evaluation of the effect of EU output.”

Claim eight: The EU costs the UK £55m a day.

Farage: “Our membership fee of the club is £55 million a day.”

Again, hard to quantify. Britain’s overall contribution to the European Union will be £8.9 billion this year, according to the Office for Budget Responsbility – or £24m a day. Nigel Farage added the tax contribution does not include harms to the overall economy, such as restrictions on fishing policy and red tape on business. Nick Clegg said it did not include benefits, such as access to European markets.